HONG KONG -- Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection (CHP) reported Saturday 28 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 16 local infections.

The newly reported cases, involving 12 males and 16 females aged between three and 85, brought the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Hong Kong to 1,431.

Eight of the additional local cases are with unknown sources of infection, Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the CHP's Communicable Disease Branch, said at a media briefing on Saturday afternoon.

Apart from the newly confirmed cases, more than 30 persons have been preliminarily tested positive of COVID-19, Chuang said, warning that Hong Kong is facing the most serious situation since the COVID-19 epidemic started here.

The Immigration Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government said earlier on Saturday that a 27-year-old male immigration officer who stationed at the Shenzhen Bay Control Point was notified late Friday to have preliminarily tested positive of COVID-19 and was sent to hospital by ambulance.

"Of course now the epidemic is worrying, therefore we are actually assessing the risks on a daily basis," the HKSAR government's Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan said on Saturday, emphasizing, "We have entered into a new normal."

Chan said the HKSAR government is trying to trace all the confirmed cases and contacts, and is also working on testing for target groups such as the staff of the elderly homes, taxi drivers and workers of the catering business.

"We have also tightened the social distancing measures," Chan said. "After we have continuously assessed the situation, we do not preclude that there will be other measures."